The Old Flame Job
by Dispatchvampire
Summary: A woman from Eliot's past comes to him with a really big favor. He comes through, but at what cost? Pairing will be Eliot/OC but mainly in the past tense. Rated T for language and themes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: In three parts. **

I don't own any of Leverage. The only thing that belongs to me are the OCs and the plot. Obviously, I'm not profiting.

There are very few spoilers in this. Maybe passing glances at Big Bang Job and the Bank Shot Job.

This is my first trip into the fandom. Normally my interests lay elsewhere but this one has been chewing on my brain like a piece of jerky. Many thanks to Roar526 for reading over this for me. Please feel free to read and review. Thanks!

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Stairs were always the hardest part of any trip. Even if it was just the few steps down from the bustling Boston street into the relative dark of John McRory's Place, she could still hear the internal crunching and gnashing protestations of cartilage long overdue for an overhaul. She was thankful again for the cane the boys had gotten for her, tricked out with deep purple metallic paint and red flames. If she had to be a cripple, she could at least be stylish about it.

Em surveyed the room, cataloguing faces and dispositions, a holdover from her old job with implications for her current one. Making her way to the bar, she took a seat at the nearest corner, the one that afforded her the greatest view of the room as well as incoming and outgoing traffic. She had things to do, and getting ambushed around a bunch of civilians was not on the agenda for today. "Irish, neat." She added, "Please," as an afterthought. She was in 'mission mode' and as such, was short on niceties.

Digging through her satchel, she withdrew her journal and pen before draping the strap over the hook protruding from the bar just far enough to keep attracting her bad knee. She had things to do, lots of them, but for now, she simply had to wait for him, and she knew he'd come, so she'd write, work on the other job weighing on her mind heavily, the one that paid the bills. She sipped the whiskey, hoping the burn on her tongue and down her throat would help settle her nerves.

With an eye and an ear trained on the door, she worked through her scene, writing out longhand what would take her merely seconds on her laptop, but again, she had her reasons. Reasons like not needing the extra weight as she trekked all over Boston in search of a plan and a partner. Especially when she was out with her cane. It was a little too much to deal with, considering.

Though she didn't grudge having the cane, which afforded her a great deal of privacy in public. Most people saw it before they saw her, if they managed to see her at all. Physical disability was still something of a taboo and very few people took it upon themselves to approach her out in public as opposed to while she was at work.

Her disguise was firmly in place, though she'd had the look for so long, it hardly counted as a disguise anymore. The look was one of an eccentric artist, hair that had been long and proudly black was now short and spiky white tipped in purple, she wore glasses, funky and fashion forward even though she wore her contacts beneath them, and a small silver ring in her right nostril that connected to her ear via a delicate silver chain. Combine all that with her tight black shirt, expensively ripped jeans and steel-toed boots, all of which were holdovers from her old life, and she affected quite the air of 'eau de Fuck Off'.

"Excuse me."

She looked up to see a beautiful woman walking towards her. Dark hair with a hint of red that fell in waves to her shoulders, flawless olive skin, and a walk that should have brought the room to a screeching halt, the lady was fine. And English. Odd to hear that accent here, and considering her current predicament, Em straightened in her chair and casually slipped her right hand into her pocket to hold the balisong knife, in case it was warranted. "May I help you?"

The woman walked over to the bar stool next to hers and leaned against it, affording her a long gaze at her new companion. Features that were sharp, but indistinctly ethnic, making her, like Em, indeterminately brown, in a gold silk blouse and a dark silk skirt shot through with enough gold thread to match the shirt, and impossibly tall heels. Her hand over the back of the chair held a book, her finger in the middle keeping her place. A romance novel with a familiar cover, Em almost laughed. "You look like someone I should know."

Oh, this was not anything she had time for… she looked past the woman to the back of the bar, and then to the door again, knowing that there was no way she could make a run for it. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met."

The woman studied her closely, and Em's fingers tightened around the knife. She was not above killing in public, but she certainly didn't want to make a habit of it. She smiled and offered her hand. "I'm sorry, I'm Sophie Devereaux, and you look strikingly like—"

"Emmy?"

Em turned in the direction of the door, stiffening as she was recognized twice in as many minutes, only this one wasn't unwelcome at all. It wasn't a surprise that he could see right through her affectations, twenty years of friendship made that possible. She hopped down off the stool in just enough time to grab her cane before being swept up in the bear hug embrace of her old friend.

Though his hair was longer, much longer, and he wore flannel over a tank top instead of black BDUs, she'd know those ice blue eyes anywhere, any time. That and the smell of leather and musk that was distinctly Eliot, something her body also remembered quite vividly. He let her slide down his muscled frame until her feet touched the floor again, though he didn't let her out of the circle of his arms. "How do, neighbor?" she asked in a Southern accent that she'd all but chased from her tongue except for special occasions, as her lips drew back in a broad grin, despite her circumstances.

"Eliot," Sophie was practically bouncing with wide-eyed curiosity, which was a bit of a sight considering she still had on her towering heels.

Eliot's eyes, bright and as full of mischief as she could remember, moved from their perusal of Em's face to the dark-haired woman. "Sophie, not now."

She smacked him in the arm with her novel, her perfectly tinted lips in a moue, "Eliot," she put the emphasis on the last syllable making him look distinctly annoyed. "You know Emerald Duquesne. All this time you've seen me read her novels and you never said anything."

Em swallowed back a slight giggle as his cheeks flamed and he finally released her. "Didn't seem relevant at the time," he offered gruffly.

Em reached out and shook Sophie's hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you. Always great to meet a fan."

Sophie flushed and offered her book. "Lovely to meet you. Would you mind?"

Em smiled and picked up her pen, even as Eliot rolled his eyes and shoved his bangs out of his face. "I'm sure she didn't come here for that, Soph."

She sat up straighter as she inscribed Sophie's paperback, and shook her head slightly to let him know this was not a conversation open to the public. "It's fine, Eliot," she emphasized the 'fine' in case he was unclear on her body language. Sophie took her book back and they made a few more pleasantries until Eliot's glare finally chased her off.

He waited patiently as she put her journal away and collected her effects, carrying her drink for her as he escorted from her seat at the bar to the back room, away from the din of other customers.

Em sat down in the chair he held out for her, hooking her cane on the edge of the table and setting her bag on the floor next to her feet. "It's been a while." It wasn't an accusation, just a commentary, and hell, even a compliment. Surviving five years in his and her lines of work was impressive, on many levels.

"Sarajevo," he said as he looked from her to the lines in his palms that were suddenly more interesting than his friend across the table.

She hummed in agreement. They both knew where they were when they last saw each other, what they said, what was better left unspoken. She threw the rest of her whiskey back in a single swallow, wincing as it sliced its way down to her belly.

"What happened to your leg?" He still didn't look up but his eyes were now focused on the glittery purple handle hooked on the table and not at his own hands. "You get bit by your own work?"

It was Em's turn to look down at her hands, by no means her best feature. Little lines that were white on her natural tan, criss-crossing the backs of her hands and her knuckles. She'd been bitten more than once, gnawed on a couple times beyond that, but she was lucky, all limbs and digits accounted for, which was more than could be said for some of her contemporaries. "Disease managed to accomplish what bullets and even my own machinations could not."

His lips thinned into a grimace. "Sorry," he offered softly. Not much he could say beyond that. There had been a time, back in the day, when their combined destructive natures were enough to topple dictatorships and lay waste to great swaths of land. Now, he was a hitter in a crew of thieves and she was retired, and in need of his services.

She reached across the table and took his hand, a touch that very few ever offered him, most likely because of how he looked and how he was. Em had no such predilections. "No need. We carry on…"

"Because we know no other way," he finished for her with a gentle grin as he massaged the backs of her fingers with his thumb. "So what brings you to Boston? I didn't think you spent much time in America anymore."

Brass tacks. The bottom line. She only hoped he'd be up for one more adventure. "My boys."

His light eyes snapped to hers and pinned her down with wary and wide-eyed suspicion. "I'm sorry? Your… what?" Though he didn't remove his hand from hers, she could feel the tension in his fingers, the slight tremor.

Given their history, she understood the origins of the look of terror that had etched itself all over his face. She reveled in it for only a moment before letting him off the hook. "My godsons, Michael and Gabriel. They live here now, with their mother, and I love them and help take care of them."

He looked simultaneously relieved and proud of her. "Good for you. I'm sure they benefit from your…" he paused to chuckle while he looked down at their mutually battered and joined hands, "vast experience."

She gave him her most sarcastic smile. "I am retired. I'm a writer now. I can't overstate that. They know nothing of my old life."

He licked his lips, and looked at her earnestly. "Ok, then why come to me?"

"Because you're not." She fingered her empty tumbler of whiskey with her free hand, suddenly really wishing for a refill. "Ivan Marković."

"Serbian terrorists? I thought you were retired."

"I am!" She gripped his hand tightly before releasing his fingers. "He requested my services through the usual channels and I politely declined. He took exception, and then he took my boys."

Eliot's eyes grew cold with fury. Very few things got next to him faster than those who intentionally placed children in the line of fire. She was counting on that. "What does he want?"

"He wants my services in exchange for their lives. Says he'll release them in exchange for me."

Eliot sat back and crossed his arms. Theirs was a delicate and dangerous business and even though she was emotionally involved, she knew that she had to keep at least some part of her mind clear in order to get a plan together. That was where he came in. "Your sister. Why didn't you call her?"

"Oh hell." Em looked from him to the empty glass and back and he reached into a cabinet under the table and pulled another bottle of Irish whiskey out. Her sister added an order of magnitude of crazy that she was not prepared to cope with on a good day. She loved her, but this was a job that required a laser, not a chainsaw. She downed the shot he poured her in one gulp and set the glass down upside down on the table. "You want to violently overthrow a tyrant? She's your girl. You want to quietly extract two juveniles from professional kidnappers, you look to someone with a slightly more… _subtle_ skill set. I came to you because she and discretion have never even made each other's acquaintance and most likely never will. She kills freely and would do so in front of the boys. They don't need to see that."

He looked at the ceiling as he thought about it, arriving at the same conclusion with a conceding nod. "Yeah, I remember. You're probably right."

"I know I am." She waited as they stared at each other, hoping that her desperation didn't show. His eyes, always so expressive, were closed to her scrutiny. A part of her was busy making peace with the fact that maybe this was a mistake, that maybe the man in front of her, hardened by wars and battles, had simply been through too much to extend himself like this. Maybe she was a bastard for asking him.

"I gotta talk to the team."

She was angry at the hope she felt, because it grew unchecked in her chest, and she couldn't get a handle on it. "Will they let you take outside gigs?"

Eliot shrugged, an elegant play of musculature beneath the flannel of his shirt. "That's what I'm gonna find out."

"I have money." She hated how needy the offer sounded, but if that was what it took to get her boys back unharmed, she'd dump every account she had in the Caymans, the Maldives, and Zurich.

He stood and she did as well. He walked over and cupped her cheek, his thumb ghosting over her cheekbone. "And I'd never take it. You know that." She closed her eyes at the touch and for just a moment, it was like the last five years had melted away. They were in a flat in Serbia above her workshop, a little wilder, a little more carefree even though they were both on assignment. Then she opened her eyes to find the reality in the same condition they'd left it in, his sad smile telling her that he'd taken the same brief jaunt she had.

They walked back out to the bar and he got her a seat at a table in the back of the bar, away from most of the rest of the patrons. "When will you know?"

"Give me an hour, okay?" He flagged down one of the waitresses, a lovely thin girl with long red hair, and told her to take care of Em. "She's family, okay?"

Em pulled her book from her satchel and began writing again. She'd waited this long, another hour wasn't going to kill her.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Still no ownership of Leverage. Still making no cash. Just like writing. Hope you are enjoying the story, please feel free to review. Thanks.

"You want us to help a _bomb maker_ get her godkids back? Is that what you're saying?" Hardison was busy pulling up files and pictures from times that Eliot would have paid good money to forget or leave behind. The irony that the indictment was coming from a _hacker_ in a band of _thieves_ was not lost on him but he didn't want to get into that just now.

He ran both his hands through his hair as he focused on keeping his patience. They'd been going at this for ten minutes already and the only thing anyone wanted to focus on was Em's former profession. "She is _retired_. She's a novelist now. Sophie can vouch for her."

Sophie was sitting on the couch, the book in question on the table in front of her as she watched the changing information on the screen. "She seems like a lovely person now. And you heard her on the com. She's committed to these children. We should at least—"

"We? Oh _hay_-ell naw. What is this '_we'_ nonsense? She asked for Eliot. If she wants him, let her have him." Hardison was now pulling up Em's personal info, including her degrees in chemistry and her work for the federal government as well as her freelance gigs. "Eliot's ex is a regular Uni-bomber. She was a gun for hire for several small insurgencies around the globe as well as being personally responsible for two changes in government in a couple former Eastern-bloc countries. Really? She wants our help? She's a monster."

"Don't call her that!" was out of his mouth before he could control it, the violence that followed behind the sentiment just below the surface, fighting for dominance with the other unresolved emotions there. That did not bode well for Hardison. "And she's not my ex," Eliot growled, his tone more controlled, though that wasn't quite the truth. 'Ex' would require that they'd had some sort of finite end to their situation instead of both of them getting moved by their handlers to parts unknown on the same night. "And she's not that person anymore."

"Maybe she made all of this up," Parker sat on the couch, munching on a bowl of cereal, eyes transfixed on the picture of the boys that Hardison had put up on the screen. When all eyes turned to her, she shrugged, "I mean, she is a writer. Maybe she's just making all of this up because she wants to get back together with Eliot."

Though she was completely insane on most days, this statement might have sounded perfectly reasonable, had the client been anyone but Emmy. "No, she wouldn't have come to me if she'd had another choice." That much he knew almost better than he knew his own name. He met Sophie's disapproving glare for a moment before looking down at the toes of his boots like he might find his answers there.

"What of her sister?" Sophie's eyes never left him and the longer she stared, the more exposed Eliot felt.

"Amethyst," he relented, which set Hardison's fingers off in a flurry of activity, and images of a shorter version of Emmy, only with long, curly red hair and a look of the kind of controlled crazy that Parker could only dream about filled the wall of monitors. "But she is what is considered by Emmy, and our government for that matter, a weapon of last resort."

"Her sister is crazier than she is! Did y'all see this?" Like an epileptic's nightmare, news story after news story flashed on the screen of all the people that Amethyst 'Amy' Duquesne had either killed or been rumored to have killed. "I stopped counting at like fifty."

"She's killed more people than the plague," Sophie marveled.

"That is why Emmy wants me, and not her," Eliot supplied as he looked over to see a suspiciously silent Nate sipping his morning bourbon at the kitchen table across the room.

"Like you're any better," Hardison grumbled as he found pictures of Em and the kids together. There was love there, that much was obvious. She had taken to her retirement and completely given herself to these boys, whose father was a cop killed in the line of duty in Cincinnati.

"Those boys are her life. She's given up everything for them, would give up more if she needed to. I'm _going_ to do this." The offer to come with was tacit, but he would never make demands of them.

Nate, who had been disturbingly quiet during this whole exchange except for the sound of a bottle of whiskey hitting the table after a pour every now and then, unfolded his long frame from the kitchen table and walked over to the screen. The picture of Emmy, with her shock of white hair and her artsy glasses, riding bikes in a park was still on the screen. The smiles on each face were full and genuine, like they all knew how to be truly happy and didn't have to learn it from somewhere else. He turned and looked Eliot over. Everyone's eyes were on him as he sipped his drink and let out a great sigh. "I guess… we're going to go steal some kids."

/\/\/\/\/\

Em followed Eliot upstairs to his office, his hand on the small of her back as he escorted her. It was funny how little things, like his manners, had managed to stay with him through his rough and tumble journey through life. He had told her very little about his crew, just that they were thieves with varying specialties and were all familiar with her background. At least the introductions wouldn't be excruciating, which was a bonus, she guessed.

The 'office' was actually a living room with a comfy –looking grey sectional occupied by a woman with long blonde hair and tight black leggings, eating a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, from the smell of it. "You don't look like a monster." She sounded suspicious, accusatory, like horns and a tail were somehow required for this event and she was woefully underdressed.

After a quick glance at Eliot, she shrugged. "It depends on who you ask."

The woman's bright eyes and innocent expression reminded her of her sister, Amy, brilliant, but not quite all there. She stood still as the blonde looked her up and down and back again before making her assessment. "So can you make C4?" she asked around a mouthful of cereal.

Em snorted in amusement as Eliot's fingers tensed against her back. "I can. Do you need some?"

Parker put her bowl on the table and bounded over to her. The blonde woman was no bigger than a minute and Em laughed as she was enveloped in the most enthusiastic hug she'd ever received from anyone who wasn't her godkids. "I like you. I don't care that you've killed more people than the plague."

"Parker!"

Sophie's startled exclamation surely matched Em's expression as it drew her eye to the corkscrew staircase across the room where she and a taller man dressed in all black, descended from the upstairs.

"What? It's not like she was lyin'." A dark-skinned kid, maybe a little younger than her sister, came from the back room, typing on his laptop as he walked, in a bright green shirt with the emblem for the Green Lantern across his chest and some baggy jeans.

Eliot herded her over to the couch and waited until she was seated to drag one of the bar stools over to sit next to her. "I know this whole situation is unorthodox," Em started, "and I'm sorry to just barge in like this."

"At least you're not robbing a bank…" Nate shrugged as he poured two fingers of amber liquid in a glass and took a sip.

The hums of agreement about the sentiment were unnerving. "So what now?"

"Why don't you tell us about the guy who has the kids? What does he want from you?" Sophie prompted.

"His name is Ivan Marković and he runs a small terrorist operation out of Belgrade." Her eyes jumped to the screen as pictures of the bastard flashed across as well as his vitals.

"Kidnapping, extortion, blowing up schools… this dude makes Idi Amin look downright warm and fuzzy."

Em nodded tightly, all her thoughts focused on the fact that this psycho currently had her godkids. "Yeah, and given my particular knowledge base and abilities, I'm sure what he wants from me isn't terribly cute and cuddly, either."

Eliot reached down and took her hand, bringing her attention solely to him. "How do you want to play this?" he asked softly, his Southern drawl incredibly comforting.

She searched his gaze, knowing that hers was determined and maybe just a little feral, sights that were more than likely familiar. "What I _want_ is to smear this bastard across the Eastern Seaboard like a thin coat of varnish."

Her proclamation made him drop his head with a grin. He used his free hand to move his bangs out of his face, his deep dimples putting in an appearance. "Well, darlin', nice to see some things don't change."

She gave him a sad smile. "Just because I have two boys to think about doesn't mean that I've gone soft, just that I have different priorities now. I need to get those boys back, whatever the cost."

"Even if that cost is you?" Sophie asked softly, walking around to put a hand on Eliot's shoulder, watching their joined hands with an expression that bordered on curious amusement.

"I am prepared for that eventuality," she answered evenly, as she met the tall woman's gaze and withdrew her hand from Eliot's.

"Well, since Eliot has the most experience dealing with kidnappings—" Nate started.

"Given that he's probably participated in several," Hardison mumbled into his fist as he looked innocently over at the fridge.

Eliot shot off the stool stalking over towards the hacker, "Alright, I have had all the snide remarks from you that I'm gonna take today, Hardison. If you have something you want to say to me, just say it."

"I just think that when we dabble in your past, much moreso than anyone else's, it tends to be potentially lethal to the rest of the team, and I think we need to discuss that." He crossed his arms and fixed a steady gaze on Eliot that stopped him in his tracks. Whatever had passed between them before now, she didn't know, but it was bad and it was still an open wound as far as the younger man was concerned.

He raked his fingers through his hair, tucking his bangs behind his ears before stuffing his hands in his pockets. "If this is about you and the damn swimming pool—"

"You're damn right it is! I am not going to put in a position to be drowned again because you freelanced for Lucifer himself. Your bad choices have casualties and consequences," his dark gaze travelled from her friend over to her, "and so do hers."

Em struggled to her feet, due to the low height of the couch coupled with the shaking rage that settled over her like a familiar blanket. "Michael and Gabriel," she said both their names to emphasize that they were people and not just pictures on a screen, "will _not_ be casualties. That is the whole reason I came here. If you don't want to help, then I'm sorry to have wasted your time." She looked to Sophie, "It was lovely to meet you. Please, excuse me."

Head held high, she walked out the front door and down the hall to wait for the elevator. She heard Eliot's snarl of "Dammit, Hardison!" before the door slammed and his heavy footfalls followed her.

"Emmy, I'm sorry."

She didn't turn around to look at him, knowing that the cracks in her façade would be all too obvious to him and falling apart wasn't a luxury she could afford at that moment. "Don't be. They are allowed their opinions, their decisions. I'm still gonna do what I need to do."

The elevator doors opened, but she was pulled back against the hard wall of his chest in an awkward hug. It was the first real physical contact she'd allowed herself since the ordeal began, and the tears that she had been ruthlessly keeping in check, welled up from her eyes and slid silently down her cheeks in big fat drops, the only concession to the stress she'd made thusfar. He buried is face in her neck as he held her there, the gruff murmurs of consolation and affection were the only indication that he knew just how close to the edge she was. The fact that he could still read her that well after five years was telling, but not something she really could get into right then.

"I'll take her to one of my safehouses, I'll let you know if we get a call from the kidnappers and what kind of timetable we're working on. Yes, Sophie, I'll tell her," he said to no one in particular before he removed a tiny earpiece and put it into his shirt pocket. When the elevator doors opened again, they boarded in silence, his arm around her waist all the proof she needed that he was in this for the long haul.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Just wanted to thank Annie for all her help on this. Also a reminder that I don't anything but the plot and OCs 

"I have to say, El, this is quite the step up from the warehouse in Minsk. Or that hovel in Tbilisi." She ran a hand over the beautiful Chinese wall carving just inside the door of the flat.

He had decided to forego the safehouse altogether and take her to the safest house he knew, his own. A flat in a quiet, unassuming apartment building, with anonymous neighbors and surveillance on the parking structure across the street, it was everything he needed when getting away from the crew for awhile became a necessity. "Hey, those were good times," he admonished as he herded her over to the couch and then went to the fridge to get them both a beer.

"Do you remember when that rat ate my detonator?"

The look of irritated disgust on her face was the same as it had been that day so long ago and he couldn't help but laugh. "Aww, now, it didn't mean it. And that was just one time, anyway."

"Do I need to remind you about the camel?"

Eliot closed his eyes on a wince as he cracked open the bottles. That was an image that would never be scrubbed away, no matter how much bleach he applied to his brain. "No, thank you. Please don't ever mention it again."

Her giggle was evil as she accepted the proffered bottle from him. He took a seat across from her and she cocked your head to the side while she watched him get comfy. "They were good times. You were there. The world was…" she couldn't find a way to put into words all the ways he'd changed her life, altered her perceptions, really made her into who she was now. Not the best thing, because words were her business as a writer, but somehow, she knew those were the emotions that had no business bleeding out onto the pages.

"Yeah," he agreed softly with a nod, "it was." He touched his bottle to hers and then took a drink.

Before the melancholy truth had a chance to drift back down between them, she turned to face him on the couch, pulling her good leg up next to her. "So, here's the deal. He called me early this morning and said he wanted my answer by," she looked down at her watch, "an hour from now. I tried tracing the call but it was a burn phone that bounced around several times, so I'm going to have to assume it's spoofed." At Eliot's incredulous look, she winked. "What? I can wire up radio frequency detonators from a garage door opener, I can work a computer. What am I going to tell him?"

Eliot got quiet for a moment, staring off at the room just beyond her. "Okay, is it alright with you if I give Hardison your cell phone number? I think everyone needs to hear this."

She shrugged, it sounded reasonable. "You think he'll want to? He's not too fond of me."

Eliot sighed and set the bottle of beer on the coffee table. "It's me he's mad at, though I do understand why. He'll do this, because it's the right thing to do."

She nodded and watched as he texted the number to the hacker. "It's encrypted." At his raised eyebrow, she sniffed, "Some habits die harder than others."

Eliot grinned and shoved his phone in his pocket. "I understand, look behind the cushion." He got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. "You still like risotto?"

"Am I still brown?" She laughed at him as he banged around the kitchen pulling down pots and pans. She felt behind the couch cushion she was leaning against and found not one, but two throwing knives and a slim but effective blackjack, a present she'd gotten him on a trip to Shanghai. The latter she held up, "Really?"

He blushed and grinned but said nothing and began browning the chicken. The scent of garlic and onions filled the air quickly and she was again transported in her mind to a simpler time. He always cooked for her because, in his words, she "should change over to assassinations full time if she was gonna cook like that." A scathing indictment she'd yet to live down fully, though she had taken some classes.

She reclined on the couch and closed her eyes, feeling safer and more secure than she had since this whole business started. Her plan was to make the trade and get the kids out. She could fend for herself, she had always been able to before, and Eliot could work better if he knew it was just her and there were no kids involved. She knew his beef with having children in the kill zone, and she shared it, though his was from unfortunate firsthand experience and hers was more on principle.

The scent of creamy garlic chicken risotto with blanched asparagus wafted beneath her nose and she woke with a start, almost knocking the plate from his hands. Thankfully his reflexes were damn quick and he moved out of the way.

"Y'alright there, darlin'?" He'd moved back a couple feet, just in case, and was still holding the steaming plates.

She blinked and looked around at her surroundings. Slate blue walls and dark wood furniture. Eliot's house. "Yeah," she nodded, though she didn't look him in the eye, "I'm good. Sorry."

"I made your favorite," he offered with his most winning smile. The towel carelessly tossed over his shoulder and his hair held back by a bandanna gave him a certain disarming charm.

Now she really felt like a heel for freaking out on him. "Thank you." She took the plate and had to admit her mouth was watering. She'd not eaten a whole lot since she found out about the kidnapping, and this was the first real meal she'd had in a couple days.

No sooner than she put the first bite into her mouth, her phone rang. "Fuck!" She looked to Eliot who already had his com out and was putting it back into his ear. The sound of Bugs Bunny singing 'The Rabbit of Seville' filled the room, her boys ringtone. "Do I answer it?" He held up a finger, advising her to wait while he muttered tersely into his com, then he pointed to her and she picked up. "Hello?"

"Miss Duquesne. I worried that I might have missed you." Marković's voice was light and airy, like they were confirming a lunch date, not confirming her compliance with a ransom demand.

"No chance of that," she replied dryly. She met Eliot's gaze and he nodded, falling back into their old pattern of tandem communication. "So when do we make the trade?"

"You're agreeing to my terms then?" He sounded positively delighted, and she felt the most incredible urge to punch him in the throat. The look in Eliot's eyes said he was feeling the same way.

"Yes. Me in exchange for them. Alive and unharmed, I can't overstate that." She watched Eliot's nod, though from the look in his eyes, he was hearing more than he was seeing.

"Oh absolutely," Marković replied dismissively, then he amended, "well alive, certainly. Unharmed…" he trailed off menacingly.

The fear for her boys dropped her stomach to her feet. Eliot's eyes cleared and he held up a hand, trying to keep her from doing something stupid. "Let me make this a little more clear to you. I want proof of life, and I want it right now." She was taking even breaths through her nose, though she could almost smell the blood there. Though she hadn't woken up with the intent of killing anyone, obviously her plans were going to change. Eliot nodded cautiously, and reached out to lay his hand over hers, she'd never even noticed that it had clenched into a fist.

"And if I can't provide it?" His smug tone was what did it. She felt the last tether on her temper snap with a sizzle, not an explosion.

"Then I go from being your potential employee to your potential problem, and considering what you want from me, that could go badly for all involved." Her tone was cold and controlled as she pulled the last vestiges of the vicious sociopath she used to be around her like a favorite sweater. "You have five minutes." She hung up the phone to see Eliot shaking his head vigorously.

/\/\/\/\/\

"You are fucking certifiable! What the hell kind of negotiation tactic was that?" That went against everything he was taught, everything he knew, and yet, he was still impressed with the brass set it took to lean on someone from her position. He knew the moment Em's imfamous temper took over, the flatness that came over her normally sparking eyes and stubborn set of her jaw. In that moment she looked more like her sister than she did the Emmy he usually saw. She had a reputation as a badass, a well-earned one, but still, banking on that right now was reckless as hell. As dangerous as the situation was already, her being irretrievably pissed was the very last thing they needed.

Bugs Bunny sang from his coffee table again and she picked it up casually. "An effective one." To the caller she said, "Hello?" Her eyes brightened as the voice on the other end spoke. "Hey baby! Are you okay? Is your brother okay?" Night and day, gone was the professional killer he used to sleep with and back was the devoted godmother who loved her kids.

The fact that she was talking to the boys made him feel a lot better, because the idea of her on a rampage was not something he ever wanted to see again. There were several voices in his ear, all talking at once, trying to figure out how to proceed. Hardison wasn't able to get a location on Marković, Sophie was rejoicing that the boys were fine for the moment and wondering what possessed her to threaten the kidnapper, and Nate could actually see her point.

"Okay, I'm satisfied. Bring them tomorrow when you come. Yourself. Bring bodyguards, I don't care, but we do the trade in person, body for body. I'll have people with me to take custody of the children… yes, eleven is fine… I'll be there." She hung up the phone and slumped back into the couch cushions.

Em was silent for a long time before she sat up and reached for her plate. Eliot followed suit, watching her closely. "He wants to meet on top of a parking garage on the edge of town. Like four stories.

He'd heard that and he knew the team was probably already doing a workup of the structure and surrounding areas. "I assume you have a plan," he mentioned, not looking up from his plate as he speared a piece of blanched asparagus and dipped it in the hollandaise sauce.

"Kind of." She killed her asparagus sprigs one by one, her smile growing in direct proportion to the amount of hollandaise she ingested. "I'm going to give him what he wants, and then some."

He set his empty plate down and crossed his arms as he watched her demolish the rest of her dinner. "You're gonna splatter him."

"Oh yeah," she answered quickly as she got up and took their plates to the sink. Running water and soap suds, she dunked her hands in up to the elbows like she was hiding them from her sight. "Fifty foot radius of pink mist." The casual tone and demeanor took him all the way back. She wasn't smiling, but she didn't look upset. Relaxed and resolved, she was just doing menial tasks to keep her hands busy and her mind free while she planned and calculated.

She washed the dishes and he watched her move. Even though she was on her cane, which was now leaning against the counter next to her, she was still economical with her movement. Still very composed and beautiful, deadly as the day he met her, in a place he still couldn't discuss, doing things that weren't—and aren't—sanctioned by Geneva. "So what do you need from me?"

"A notebook, so I can get a list together, and a workshop, because you know how I feel about plying my trade in populated areas." She dried her hands on the dish towel and leaned back against the sink, and he couldn't help but smile.

This he could deal with, this was familiar. The nostalgic twinge of regret of what they'd let go between them was there and gone again, put away in the box in his heart labeled 'Leave It The Hell Alone Already!' "I think we can do that."


	4. Chapter 4

Parker had been happy to volunteer her 'place', the storage unit with all of her rigs and cereal, as a makeshift workshop for Em. She even had an exhaust vent in the roof, which was great considering the chemicals involved.

Nate pulled her aside as soon as the group arrived at Parker's storage unit with the contents of her list. "A word, if you could?"

Em had known this was coming. He was the team leader, and it seemed that they all looked up to him and respected his opinion. It was only right that he question her about her motivations. "Sure." They walked a ways away from the group, with him taking care with his stride out of respect for her infirmity.

"So what is it you plan on doing?" he asked without preamble.

That was a complicated question but she appreciated his forthright approach. "Well, I now have the means of constructing several devices." She would explain the plan but the reasoning behind it was her own. He didn't need specifics, because the fewer folks knew, the less likely they were to try and talk her out of it.

"Anti-personnel devices."

"I don't make teddy bears, sir." She leaned against the white-painted cinderblock wall of one of the storage units across the street, watching the ice storm descend between Eliot and Hardison as they unloaded her bags. Parker had stepped in to separate them, but it was not going well, they needed to wrap this up quickly.

"You're going to detonate them in the car?"

"After the exchange, yes." Four of them should be enough to vaporize everything and everyone in the car. Herself included.

Nate was watching her closely, like he wanted to be sure that he understood she was proposing a suicide bombing. "Does Eliot know?"

"No." She had no intention of telling him because he'd never allow it. She would do what she needed to do, so long as he got the kids out and they didn't have to see. He didn't need to feel responsible for her actions, she was grown, and this would end with her.

He nodded and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall next to her as he stared across the street at his team. "I'll help you as best I can, as best _we_ can, but I _will_ try to find another way around that."

She smiled and knew exactly why Eliot had thrown in with this man. He was good people, and he would take care of their mutual friend. "You're welcome to do whatever you need to, but if you can't make that happen, I'm prepared to do what I need to."

His hand on her arm was the last interaction between them before he walked back over to the car and gathered the team to catch up on their various parts of the plan.

Parker sat on the bed for a bit after everyone departed, because she wanted to see how C4 was made in case she wanted some of her own. She left for the evening, at Eliot's prompting, taking Bunny with her after he convinced her of the volatile nature of the work. Eliot stayed with Em, under the auspices of keeping her safe, but she wondered if there wasn't more to it.

He'd helped her unpack the supplies, five alarm clocks, four garage door openers, several large bottles of cleaning chemicals, lighter fluid, some magnesium bars, two pounds of screws and nails, about a thousand Styrofoam cups, chalk, and a brand new cane. Never asked one question, though she knew the curiosity was probably chewing a hole through him.

While she set up her ingredients and Eliot had filled her in as she'd changed into an old pair of jeans and a tank top of Eliot's that was covered in grease stains from working on his Challenger. She'd tied the extra part in a knot at her waist, pulling the shirt tight across her ample chest and keeping it out of the way while she worked. He hadn't stopped looking at her since she put it on.

"It's actually a good site for an exchange. Deserted garage, four stories like you said, no tall structures around except for a couple billboards. One way in and one way out."

Em hummed as she shredded the foam cups and threw the pieces into a large vat on the floor. "Can you extract me there?"

He shook his head, "Not without a lot of risk. It would be easier to track you with one of Hardison's little GPS," he frowned as he groped for the word, "_things_, and extract you at the termination point."

She tossed him an aerator and a set of goggles. "Interesting choice of words."

Even behind the protective gear, she could see the grin on his face. She only wished she could share in it more fully.

It was like old times as he turned on the radio to a classic rock station and pulled up a stool next to her as she mixed her special blend of mayhem. She combined the chemicals as he systematically destroyed the alarm clocks and garage door openers, removing their innards and placing them in neat sections on the workbench Parker used to construct her harnesses. It was actually very fortunate that Parker volunteered her place since she had a lot of the ancillary gear that Em needed: drills, soldering irons, and even an arc welder.

After two hours of solid work, she stepped out front for some fresh air. The cool embrace of the night felt good against the grimy sweat on her skin. She needed a bath and a smoke, and not necessarily in that order. As if she'd wished it into being, a fresh, open box of her favorite Russian cigarettes appeared in front of her face. "Bless you," she groaned in happiness as she pulled one from the box and stuffed the rest in her pocket.

His smile was all teeth as he lit her smoke with a lighter that looked suspiciously familiar. She grabbed his hand before he put it away and saw that it, too, was a gift from a lifetime ago, with an inscription that hurt her heart to read. Did the man keep _everything_?

As if he sensed her question, "It's come in handy more than once." He seemed a little embarrassed, but then, considering he was a man who prided himself on his lack of sentimentality, it was an oddity that he would have not one, but two gifts she'd given him.

"I'm sure." She nodded. That was all he would ever say about it, though his actions were substantially louder than his speech. She closed her eyes and rested her head back against the door, enjoying the chocolaty velvet taste of the smoke and turned her plan over in her head. Eliot was going to hate it, but she had her reasons, and she was going to do exactly what she needed to do to ensure that this _never_ happened to anyone else. "What's Hardison's beef with you?"

"It's complicated," he said softly after a lengthy silence.

"It's personal," she observed. That kind of anger was almost never job related, and while she could see a woman being angry at Eliot for any number of reasons, but a man, very few.

"With this job, there's very little difference between personal and professional. He encountered someone who knew me, someone dangerous… It got a little messy."

His attempts at being vague amused her, because she wasn't a normal client. She'd known this man since they were both ten years old and had, throughout the years, lived, loved and killed with him on multiple continents. "I can only think of one or two people that could be. Most of them have already…" she sniffed delicately as she flicked her smoke several feet away from her, "expired, or been forced into legal retirement."

"Moreau."

He spit after he said it, followed by a curse in a Gypsy dialect she hadn't heard in over a decade burning her ears, proof that their time in Eastern Europe had rubbed off on him in more than one way. She held the door for him as they went back inside. "Very personal. For both of you. Does he know?"

Eliot shook his head as he sat down on at the workbench again, wisps of his long hair covering his face and hiding his expression from her, though she didn't need to see to know how pained it was. She walked behind him and put her arms around his waist and her chin on his shoulder. His hand automatically covered hers. She didn't speak, because she knew that he wouldn't want to hear it. He wasn't ready to forgive himself, and she didn't know if he'd ever be.

They were almost done with the wiring of the detonators, and all she had to do was wait until the explosive stabilized enough for her to assemble them completely. She was building five total, with anything extra to be held in reserve for Parker as a 'thank you' present for allowing her to use her facilities. It seemed only fair.

"Why'd you come back?" His voice was rougher than normal, like whatever emotion he was feeling had broken his voice box.

"To the States?" She knew what he was asking, but she wanted to be sure he wanted to have this conversation right now.

"No, here. Now. When you called, I thought it was a trick, honestly, because I figured you were long gone and never to return." He picked up and kissed the back of her hand and looked over his shoulder at her.

God, she could never deny those blue eyes anything. She tucked his bangs behind his ear, and he closed his eyes at the touch. "I know. I wasn't mad, though." He raised an eyebrow as a crooked grin crossed his lips, but he didn't speak. "Okay, I wasn't _really_ mad. I mean, I didn't blow up your transport."

"Thank God for small favors," he murmured with a fair amount of humor.

She kissed the back of his head and pulled him closer to her. "Anyway, I know why you left. Hell, I left the same night, just a couple hours later. We just got too close to each other, and like some chemicals, the reaction was just too hot to sustain. Did more damage than good." She pulled away from him and went back over to her stool and checked the vat of explosive. "It was one thing when we were just hanging out occasionally, running into each other on various jobs." She closed her eyes at the memory of his arms around her, his lips on her neck, her mouth. He could charm her out of her pants and sidearm with just a smile. Shaking her head, she reluctantly returned to the present. "You're really good at stress relief."

Eliot blushed, and looked down at the bench with a grin. "You weren't so bad yourself."

Rather than dwell on the image that dredged up in her mind, especially considering he'd stripped down to a tank top and was in jeans that were tight enough to make her light headed, she continued her explanation. "We weren't in high school, though, El. It wasn't the occasional hot tryst with the QB any more or the SEAL or whatever. The prolonged situation in Bosnia wasn't real, wasn't who we really were. You were a mercenary, and a professional killer. I made _bombs_ for a living. We were not investment bankers, still aren't. I came back because you're good at what you do, always have been." She picked up a putty knife and one of the bottles she'd wired up to blow. "Are you sorry I brought you into this?"

He shook his head vehemently. "Not at all." His smile warmed her in ways she hadn't thought about in a long time.

/\/\/\/\/\

Em passed out on his couch after a long shower. They had finished constructing the devices around one that morning, and had gotten back to his place smelling like a refinery a half an hour later. She had said she would pay to detail his truck to get the smell out, and he laughed. That was just her, always looking out for someone else.

It was strange that she fit so well into the mercenary life. She came from a good home, with a reasonably stable family structure (if you didn't look at her sister), and yet, she chose to make the tools of insurgency the world over. Used by countless clandestine service organizations, as well as smaller groups, she plied her trade and made damn good money 'creating craters in God's green earth.'

He'd heard she'd retired a couple years after they'd parted company. Eliot had been in Tokyo on a retrieval when he saw a novel with the name she'd had growing up on the cover. Instead of a picture of the author was a photo of a tattoo he recognized immediately. It was funny to think that he knew a woman so well he could pick her out solely by her skin art, but that was how she was to him.

He took his own shower and was out quickly, throwing on a pair of sweatpants as a nod to modesty. He knew she most likely wouldn't care, but that was a set of complications he did not need to bring into an already intricate operation.

Nate had a plan, and was bringing in some outside help, though he wouldn't say who or what that entailed, and Eliot was almost afraid to ask. Parker was going to put the bombs on the car while they distracted Marković and his crew with the exchange. Hardison was manning the coms and had satellite surveillance of the whole area. Sophie was driving his Challenger as the getaway driver once they'd retrieved the kids. His job was to ensure the exchange went smoothly.

The plan in place was that she would go with them and then, after he broke her out, detonate the bombs in the car while they were coming after her. Seemed pretty simple, a bait-and-switch con he could do in his sleep.

It didn't sit well with Eliot, though, that he was going to leave Emmy with the kind of men who would threaten children and would, most likely, torture her. Though he was grateful that she had ensured the safety of the children, but it wasn't the outcome he would have preferred. Still, she was grown, and infinitely tougher than she looked. His eyes fell to the cane again, her regular one, not the one she'd purchased to do God-knows-what with. Actually, he had a good idea, he just knew better than to ask. She never did tell him what exactly was wrong, and he supposed he'd lost the right to know a long time ago. Still, she was here now, and that was what counted.

He stretched out in bed with an ear to the living room, in case she needed him. That was the thing, though, she'd never needed him. Not really. She was an equal, and that rarity attracted him. During the times that they worked together, she was always independent, separate, and that distance made her inviting. He had to admit, she still had a certain pull, but they were in different places in their lives now. As he drifted off to sleep, he found himself awash in memories and thoughts about what might have been.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This one is a bit longer, due to the subject matter. Thanks to Roar526 and Bujyo for the assists. **

Emmy was quiet in the mornings, that much he remembered. She wasn't big on conversation until at least her third caffeinated beverage, and sometimes not even then. Before an op was definitely one of those times.

By the time they met up with the rest of the team, he'd gotten maybe ten words out of her, only three of which were consecutive. She was focused in a way not familiar to those outside their respective lines of work and he knew that she'd bring down hell on Marković without even a backwards glance.

The team rode in separate cars to the exchange site, with him, Sophie and her in his Challenger and Parker in Sophie's truck. Before they'd left, Hardison had fitted Emmy with a com, which was met a great deal of disdain. He was headed over to take care of a 'last minute detail' and Nate was en route to Logan to pick up Natasha, the children's mother.

"I don't need to hear the op." She sat in the back seat of the car with all the serenity of a coked up tiger in a cage. He could feel the rage inside her building up and flowing from her in increasingly concussive waves.

"We need to be able to track you." He tried to sound reasonable, but, from the front seat, he couldn't see her face or read anything but her tone, and cold rage hid a multitude of nuances.

"So implant me with RFID." She pulled at her ear like a sullen toddler with an infection. She was dressed in a fitted white tshirt that he'd been trying not to notice and enjoy all morning and her faded jeans, like she was going to a barbecue at her grandmother's house, not meeting an internationally wanted terrorist. She'd even traded canes for the occasion, leaving the purple one and the rest of her belongings in Nate's apartment, with the intention of picking them up once the op had ended.

"Oh, I love this plan!" Hardison chimed in from his van. He had to go attend to the backup plan, one that Eliot and Nate would have a long discussion about later. "I have some new prototypes that I've been dyin'—"

"Shut up, Hardison," he grumbled as Sophie rode in silence in the front seat, demurely reading her novel. It appeared she was wisely opting out of this argument. "No one is implanting anything. Just wear the damn com."

Her lips curled in a sneer, she stared out the window. "Too many voices in my head. I can't think. Now I know how a schizophrenic must feel."

Her comment brought all chatter to a halt, and Eliot couldn't help but grin. She was in mission mode, and her brand of refined politeness was no longer on the table. For a long time the only sound was her rolling her new cane back and forth across the tops of her thighs. He should have thought of that line sooner.

In way too short a time, the parking garage came into sight. He was seized by a lot of emotions, none of which he acknowledged, choosing instead to pull over a short distance away, and look her over in the back seat as she stared straight ahead. "You good?" She nodded once.

"Black SUV on the far south end of the top floor." Hardison's voice splintered the quiet that had settled over them. He and Parker had installed unobtrusive micro cameras the night before at the entrances and on each of the floors while they had been building bombs. Eliot was glad because he knew this would be tricky without visual confirmation that there would be no surprises.

"How many occupants?" Her voice was impersonal, controlled.

"Can't tell, the windows are blacked out."

Emmy grunted in displeasure. "When the kids come out, hit them with an EMP before you take them anywhere else. Hardison, you clear?"

"I will. You really think he would wire up—?" He was standing by in the van with all the implements necessary at a discreet distance. Parker was already on the scene, hidden and ready to plant the devices they'd made the night before.

"I do. He would." She looked to Sophie. "As soon as you get them and Eliot, leave. Please. Anything else that goes down, I am responsible for, but they are the priority. Okay?"

Sophie looked taken aback by the grave finality of her tone. "Responsible for? What are you going to do?"

Eliot wondered that himself. It was odd phrasing, and had an overtly ominous ring to it. "I'd like to know that, too."

"I'm sticking to the plan. They just need to be as far away from this as possible, as soon as possible." Her dark, dead eyes moved back to him and he had to squash the shiver of dread that came over him. Nothing about this felt kosher, but he couldn't put a finger on it.

"Okay, then let's do this." He drove into the parking garage, noting out loud the black sedan parked off to the side on the second floor.

"Parker?" Nate asked, and they could hear the intercom of the airport in his background.

"I got it," she responded immediately.

Eliot flexed his hands on the steering wheel as they cleared the third floor and emerged on the roof level. It was empty, except for the Yukon at the other end. He turned the car so that they'd have a quick escape once they had acquired the children. His eyes met Emmy's in the mirror and she nodded.

He stepped out of the car and leaned the seat up so that she could get out from the back seat. With the cane and her bad leg, it was more than a notion. She handed off her cane to him with the admonition, "Don't touch the hook."

Her look was so serious when she said it, he immediately grabbed it in the middle of the shaft as he held his other hand out to help her out of the car. Closer inspection of the handle indicated three buttons carefully hidden in the recesses of the grip.

"What are you gonna do, Em?" he asked, as soon as she found her footing. He handed her the cane and eyed her suspiciously.

"What I need to, El. Let me take care of this, okay?" She started off around the car, only to have him pull her back by her free arm.

"Take care of what?" he demanded gruffly.

"Now's not the time, you two," Nate intoned in both their ears. "Go make the exchange and work the plan."

Eliot released her arm but stayed close to her side as they walked around the car and across the open expanse of the deserted parking garage. "Don't think this is over," he groused, barely moving his lips.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

/\/\/\/\/\

The walk to the truck seemed endless over the broken, uneven concrete. Equally broken and uneven was the space between her and Eliot. He had his suspicions about her plan, and they were probably the right ones, but they didn't have time for a lingering explanation of what was, in her mind, simple. They wouldn't come for her if she wasn't available any longer, and obviously retirement wasn't a deterrent. Her boys would never be used as a bargaining chip again, and she would see to it. Eliot would come to that conclusion eventually as well, at least, she hoped so.

Halfway to the truck, the doors opened and they both stopped as a man in a suit got out. He was large, easily approaching six and a half feet tall with the requisite shoulders and lack of neck that went with it. His twin got out of the back seat on the opposite side, and got the passenger door for their boss.

"We're in play," she murmured and stood her ground. Eliot was a mute sentry beside her as the rest of the team acknowledged her statement.

"Miss Duquesne, lovely to finally meet you in person. I've been such a fan of your work." Ivan Marković was a slight man whose hair used to be red. He had the face of an ermine with a sharp nose and mouth that looked permanently puckered. A scar that extended from the middle of his forehead across his left eye had given him a distinct look, with one blue eye and one eye that was dead. He wore a suit that would have purchased a small country and she had to admire his taste. It was cut well, but then she'd always admired the honesty and eye of a Serbian tailor.

"You never struck me as a romance novel kind of guy," she replied without a smile.

Marković snorted. "I still find it amusing that you left a profitable life as a dealer of death for the hearts and flowers foppery of," he snorted with such distain she feared he was going to spit out something gross, "romance novels."

Her life choices were not up for debate, especially with him. "The boys. I want them."

He almost pouted. "So blunt, so American. We make pleasantries for a while and then do the exchange. That's how this works."

The smile that she felt cross her lips had killed lesser men. "I'm sure I will be much more pleasant once I see the children," she responded in Serbian.

Marković's eyebrows shot up, and he was not known as a man who was easily impressed. "You do the language justice, Miss Duquesne. I am impressed. Dmitri." The larger of the neckless men went to the back door of the Yukon and opened it. Two black haired boys around the age of seven came barreling out onto the lot, and immediately took off in Emmy's direction.

"Auntie Em!" they yelled as Dmitri grabbed them both by the back of their shirts and picked them up, their little legs pumping like they rode invisible bicycles. They twisted and fought but he didn't seem to notice.

"'Auntie Em?'" Nate asked at the same time Marković did.

"There's no place like home, yes?" Marković laughed as Dmitri flapped his arms and attempted to shake the fight out of the two boys like he would a dirty rug.

It was all she could not to react, but Eliot telegraphed calm through his grip on her arm. "Put them down," he snarled, more than willing to be the bad guy in this situation if it removed the kids faster.

"Mr. Spencer," Marković turned his good eye to Eliot. "I had no idea that when I contacted Miss Duquesne, I was getting both of you. I was unaware that you were still together."

She would have loved to see his reaction to the statement, but she never took her eyes from Marković. "He's here for the boys. Only. Not negotiable."

"Pity."

With all the jostling, one of the boys' feet connected solidly with Dmitri's ribs and he fumbled and dropped both of them. In his irritation and embarrassment, he pulled a gun from the holster inside his suit jacket as the two boys scrambled and scuttled over to wrap around her waist.

"Don't even think about it." Eliot slid in front of her smoothly as she knelt down and kissed their faces and looked them over. She tried not to make a production of feeling them up for devices, but she had to be sure. When Eliot passed in front of her, she stood, with a little help from the boys.

"Ivan," she enjoyed watching him stiffen at her use of his first name and the shades of haughty disappointment in her tone. "There is no need for this lack of civility. I came in good faith." She held up both hands to show her lack of weaponry. "There is no need to bring guns into this."

Ivan muttered something tersely in Serbian that had her covering the boys' ears and Dmitri put his gun away with an equally filthy reply. "I'm sorry. Of course. He just gets… excited."

"I understand, my boys do as well. If I may," she gestured to her two boys who were wrapped around her waist like the unwieldy holsters of an ill-fitting gunbelt. Marković nodded and she knelt down again so that she was eye level with them. Eliot was still between them and the thugs, though she knew he was listening to every word. "You see that lady behind me?"

Michael looked from her down to Sophie. "All the way down there?"

"I need you boys to run down there and get in the car, okay?"

"But," Gabriel looked behind him at the thugs and shook his head. "We can't leave you with them. They're mean."

The urge to bawl scraped across her sinuses and behind her eyes but she refused to relent. The fact that they were mistreated made her feel that much better about her plan. There would be a reckoning for this. "I'm sorry they were mean to you. I will talk to them about that. I will be okay. I need you to go now."

"Magic word," Michael scolded her about her lack of manners, and looked like he was proud to have caught her at it.

She heard Eliot's snort of amusement over the com. "Please. I need you and your brother to run down to Miss Devereaux as fast as you can and get in the Challenger. Please." She emphasized the last word as she reached up and cupped his cheek. Both boys nodded and she kissed them each on both cheeks.

She stood, with Eliot's help, and watched the boys take off in a dead sprint down to Sophie's location and then fight over who would get into the car first. She waited to turn around until she heard Sophie advise that she had them safely in the car. Eliot slid an arm around her waist and she appreciated his show of comfort and support, leaning against him and finally turning to face him.

"Go with them. I got this," she whispered as she bumped her nose against his chin. He smelled like leather and the body wash she'd found in the shower, and she wanted nothing more than to just melt into him and have him make this all go away. Still, she'd made her choices and now she would deal with the situation accordingly.

His blue eyes widened and then looked from her to Marković, with disbelief and amusement. "No chance. I'm not leaving you." Dmitri reached for her arm and a cold smile came over Eliot's lips. "Do it and I'll break your hand."

"Eliot…" she started and heard Nate on the com saying the same thing. "El, I got this. It's okay. Take the kids and go."

"I am not leaving you," he clipped each word to make sure each was just as penetrating. "Sophie can take the kids and go—"

"I won't," she interjected vehemently.

"—but I am not leaving you with him." He cupped her cheek and she had the strongest urge to lean up and kiss him or smack him, and she was leaning toward the smack.

Of all the times for him to stray from the plan… "Jesus, Eliot, I can't believe—" She ran her fingers through her hair, finding that it wasn't nearly long enough for her to fully express her level of irritation.

"If! I may redirect the focus of this touching moment," Markovic's derisive tone was unmistakable. Both Dmitri and his partner in necklessness had their guns out. "Miss Duquesne, we _do_ have business to attend to."

Eliot saw the guns and dropped his arms from around her, though the look in his eye was not one that indicated compliance. Emmy stepped in front of him with a hand on his chest, "Eliot. Don't."

"Take it." Nate's command in her ear was confusing, but she didn't have the luxury of asking what he was referring to. The world sped up around her as Dmitri grabbed her arm and yanked her off balance and his partner went for Eliot and then both their heads exploded in a pink and slightly salty spray that was now all over her formerly clean, white shirt.

She went down to the concrete in a heap and knew that she should be hurting immensely, but the corpse somewhat broke her fall. "The fuck just happened?" she demanded of Eliot who looked equally as shocked and more than a little pissed at having brain matter in his hair.

"I did."

A voice in her com, a voice Em had known since she'd been lifted from her mother's womb, a voice that could shatter glass and hearts in equal measure… when she wasn't killing people for a reasonably negotiated fee, of course. "Amethyst." Nevermind that the closest structure to give her any kind of angle was half a mile away, Amy had never been deterred by something as trivial as distance. It explained why they heard nothing when she shot.

"Aww damn, it's on now," Hardison remarked, amusement and respect in his voice.

"Shut up, Hardison," Eliot and Nate said at the same time.

Marković stilled instantly and straightened up, as the little color he'd had in his face fled to well below the neckline of his shirt. He took out his own gun, though he seemed at a loss as to whom to direct it.

Eliot gently helped her up from the ground and looked her over for marks. She shooed his hands away from her and took a step away from him. Having Amy show up changed the situation somewhat, though exactly how was still very much up for grabs. She hadn't killed him, though she could—and would—if Em asked her to, but that was not her sister's responsibility.

If she left—and Em knew could walk right now—he was free to hunt her and could hurt the boys again. If she blew him up, it took away both him and anyone else's chances of using the children against her in order to obtain her skills. "Fuck, I need to think."

"No," Marković said as he finally awoke from the fugue state the deaths of his bodyguards had induced and trained the gun on her. "You need to get in the truck. Whatever other parlor tricks you have in store are over. Now."

All of them were startled by the sudden chorus of 'American Woman' that came out of nowhere. After touching her pockets and verifying her phone was off, she looked to Eliot, who shrugged. They both then stared at Marković, who looked simultaneously pissed and horrified.

"You gonna get that?" Eliot drawled, wrapping an arm around her waist. She was still too disturbed to even think about fighting about it. The choice was clear, kind of, and it was the same choice she'd had when she woke up that morning. She only hoped that Eliot would be more amenable to it now that the guards had been disposed of.

Marković looked down at his pocket with a frown and then back at them. "No, I am not." He pushed the button to ignore the call and Emmy knew what that meant.

It was time, it had been time. She reached up and caressed Eliot's cheek without looking before she stepped away and walked over to the truck. Eliot stood off to the side like he was trying to decide if he could leave her in good conscience or not. She grabbed the handle of the back door, but found it to be locked. With her raised eyebrow and her head cocked to the side, she turned around and looked expectantly at Marković.

He patted down his pockets, and she realized that he'd have to roll the corpses for the keys. "This should be amusing," she murmured softly. He looked like he was going to have her do it until his eyes fell onto her cane and his expression fell with it. Emmy watched as he frisked the corpse closest to him. It was a halfhearted attempt, and it was all she could do to contain the giggles every time he recoiled at encountering something wet and squishy.

His phone rang again, the same song as before. The voice of her sister came over the com sounding slow, bored, and so, so calm. "Tell him to pick up this time."

"Ivan?" He looked up at her as he carelessly wiped his hands on his pants. That was a dry-cleaning bill she did not envy. "You wanna answer that." He answered it in Serbian and immediately fell silent. Em expected to hear Amy's half of the conversation, but she had evidently removed her com. His grip tightened on the phone but he never said another word as his eyes did things to her that would get you the needle in at least 42 states.

She felt Eliot's eyes on her, but watched as the transformation came over Marković. He went from cold, controlled, and composed one second, to trembling with fear or rage, she didn't know, but the puddle that grew beneath his feet was comedically suspicious. He put the phone back in his pocket after a minute of only listening.

"She said," he swallowed hard and took a shaking breath, "that if I didn't put the gun down, the next round would be in my ear."

Em nodded. She had no doubt in her mind that her sister meant that was only telling him as a courtesy to her. "She say anything else?"

Marković slowly put the gun down and kicked it over to the tips of Eliot's boots, which he quickly picked up and dismantled. "She said for me to wait in the truck," as if on cue, the car alarm chirped as the doors all unlocked though none of them had moved from their tentative detente, "and for you to leave."

She was torn, because if Amy let him live, this would never be over and she would always be looking over her shoulder and spastic about the kids. It wasn't that she had a death wish for herself, but this man was not going to get to keep breathing. It set a bad precedent and she just couldn't allow it.

After shoving the clip in his pocket, Eliot walked over to her and stood the side of her bad leg. "I think he meant now, darlin'."

"Fuck it." She turned on her heel and started for the car, feeling helpless and hopeless. Eliot helped her walk for a short time, and then picked her up without a word and carried her the rest of the way to the car. The casualties of the fall were starting to roll in, with her joints filing reports of pain most severe.

It took a moment, but she was finally loaded into the car, sandwiched in the back seat with her boys. The joy that she felt overrode everything else. She went to wrap an arm around each of them, but they both shied away.

"You smell like old perfume," Gabriel, her ever-honest child, said with a wrinkled nose and a skeptical expression.

Those would be the brains all over her, she mused, but shrugged in apology. "Sorry, boys. I'll get a shower when we get back." She looked up and met Eliot's eyes with a tired smile of her own as he guided them down through the empty parking garage. The car he'd pointed out earlier as a potential tail remained immobile.

Right as the nose of the Challenger cleared the structure, Amy's voice came across the com, "Oh, and Emmy…?"

"Yes?" Her sister's singsong voice sounded far too gleeful for her to be comfortable. Em put a hand on Eliot's shoulder and felt pressed back into the seat as he hit the gas.

"Fire in the hole."

She, Sophie, and the boys all turned around in time to see the roof of the parking garage go up in a giant ball of flame that shot into the sky.

"Bloody hell!" Sophie exhaled, with her hand at her throat and her dark eyes wide.

Em nodded, feeling suddenly like she had no more energy, for anything except breathing. "What she said."


	6. Chapter 6

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**A/N: Thank you all for the wonderful reviews and many thanks to Roar526 and Bujyo for their assistance. Usual disclaimer of ownership, blah blah blah… **

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Clean clothes, fresh and scentless felt like a little slice of heaven on her skin. It was a little weird using Nate's shower to clean up, but Eliot had assured Em that it would be fine and everyone else would wait for them downstairs. Of course, the clothes she'd worn into the house were a complete loss, and as much as it pained her to set fire to a three hundred dollar pair of jeans, she had more pressing things on her mind.

She crept into the bathroom as quietly as possible as she could with the cane and took a seat on the closed lid of the toilet. The flumes of steam coming from over the top of the black cloth shower curtain made the already warm room damn near uninhabitable for her.

"D'you need somethin', darlin'?"

Of course he heard her. He never missed anything. "You gonna be much longer?"

"You have any idea how long it takes to wash brains out of your hair?" He sounded like he was still pissed about that, and rightfully so. The sickeningly sweet scent was still stuck in her nose.

"You _do_ have a lot of hair…" she conceded with a shrug. The teasing masked her real anxiety. She didn't relish walking back downstairs by herself. Though it was her family—and Eliot's too, truth be told—she didn't want to face them alone.

He stuck his head around the side of the curtain and slicked his bangs out of his face. "You got jokes now?"

She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes in her most annoyed look, and he disappeared back into the shower with a wink. "I'm gonna get wet lungs," she groused, feeling her clean jeans begin to cling in a most unbecoming way.

"No one invited you in here," he replied, though the sound was muffled by the rush of what was probably scalding hot water.

"No one invited my sister, either, huh?"

His growl was audible over the water. "Nate didn't tell me until she was already here. I had no idea he called her until it was already done." He turned off the shower and pulled back the curtain partway. "You're on my towel."

Em followed his line of sight to where her butt was comfortably cushioned by the fluffy black terrycloth. She rose to her feet and picked up the towel, dangling it just out of his reach with an impish grin. "Is this what you wanted?"

Eliot raised an eyebrow. "If you wanted to see me naked, darlin'…" He dropped the curtain and her eyes went immediately to the ceiling as she thrust the cloth between them. His chuckle was quiet as he took it from her fingertips and wrapped it around his waist. "You can look now."

The towel did nothing to help the dangerous convergence of memories and visuals in her heated brain. She was mad, but it was hard to stay angry at a guy who had rivulets of water dripping from his hair and running down his sculpted back and chest. Okay, maybe not hard to stay mad, but definitely hard to keep breathing and remain focused on it. "Maybe I don't want to."

"Uh huh," he grunted as he walked past her and into Nate's room. The crooked grin on his lips said that he knew different, and he wasn't wrong, though she'd never admit to that sober.

Em followed him out and took a seat on the wrought iron bench at the foot of Nate's giant bed, while Eliot dressed behind her. "I didn't want her involved, El. I told you that." It wasn't like she didn't enjoy spending time with her sister, not at all. But this was her mess, and having Amy sweep in to do the clean up felt wrong, and somewhat… incomplete. Like she wasn't able to take care of herself and her family.

"And I told you I didn't make that call." He knelt beside her seat, clad in only his jeans, tank top thrown carelessly over his arm as he took her hand.

She nodded, her eyes falling to the laced fingers of their beat-up hands, thinking it was the perfect metaphor for their battered souls with their imperfect and only occasionally intersecting orbits. "I looked for you, did you know that? I mean, after we got moved and whatever."

"Oh yeah?" Eliot's thumb caressed the side of her hand as he watched her closely with a raised eyebrow. "And did you find me?"

Em nodded shakily, finding the admission hard to verbalize. "Yeah, a couple of times. In a couple of different places."

"Yet you never came for me." His denim blue gaze tangled with her dark one, curious, and without a trace of hurt.

She shrugged and stood, limping over to stare through the gauzy curtains over the windows. "Figured you might need your space."

His laugh, full and rich, came from deep in his chest, getting louder as he walked up behind her and put his arms around her. "Those were my exact reasons for leaving you alone, too."

Her hands settled over his at her waist and she laid her head back onto his shoulder as she smiled. "We're quite the pair, you and I."

"That we are, darlin'." He rested his chin on her shoulder, the stubble of his cheek and chin electric against the sensitive skin of her neck. The heat of his chest against her back was simultaneously a comfort and an additional distraction. "So was I right?"

Every breath she took smelled like him, all warm and clean and shower fresh. "Mmm… maybe." When his arms tightened around her and he growled as he made like he was going to tickle her, the warmth she'd been trying to keep at bay bubbled over. "Okay, yes. You were right."

"I thought so," he answered, amused triumph coloring his voice.

His hands left her waist and she immediately missed his touch. "You are such a cheater," she said over her shoulder with a pout that quickly melted into a grin.

"I'm a what?" His raised eyebrow made her want to throttle him, but the crooked grin and the way he ran his thumb over his lips as he regarded her had her rethinking her initial impulse. He picked up the black tank top he'd tossed back onto the bed and threw it carelessly over his head before he approached her again.

"You heard me."

Eliot grabbed her arm and spun her around quickly, pressing her to the wall next to the window. He was close enough now that she could see the silver flecks in his eyes and the slight shadow of the scar above his lip. "Say that to my face," he whispered, his eyes all but daring her.

Em's mouth pursed into a vicious little grin as he licked his lips. "No." Before he had a chance to reply, she grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his lips to hers. The memories she'd carried all these years were nothing like a hit from the source, like mint and something uniquely Eliot that made her pulse jump and her knees melt as she pressed closer to him. His hand slid up her arm to touch her face, fingertips on her cheek as he tilted her chin for a better angle.

Her fingers slowly unclenched from his hair and slid down to his neck and then his shoulders as her body rose to his kisses. His tongue coaxed an urgent little whimper from her throat that brought them both back to their senses. He pulled back infinitesimally and rested his forehead against hers. "That's been coming for a minute," he mused ruefully, his breath still soft against her lips.

She hummed in agreement and ducked out from under his arm. It was so easy to fall back into the old patterns, old rhythms, even if they weren't still weren't exactly right years later. Hell, did she even know what constituted right and wrong anymore? She picked up her discarded clothes and began stuffing them into a paper bag so they could be incinerated. "I'm sorry. I just can't seem to help myself when it comes to fucking up."

"This," he indicated between them as he gathered up his own clothes, "was the one thing we managed to never fuck up. Don't pretend like it was anything else."

She looked down at the bag, rolling the top down to close it, her eyes on everything but him. Em didn't want to talk about the past anymore, because that kiss proved that the pain of separation was still fresher than she would have preferred. She set the bag on top of Nate's dresser and sank back down to the bench to wait as he put on his socks and shoes.

"So you were really gonna do it?" he asked softly, leaning over as he pulled the laces tight on his work boots. "I mean, you really planned on blowing yourself up? What about the plan?"

"It was a perfectly fine plan," she agreed with a shrug, "but my way guaranteed that no one else would be able to come after my family again."

"Well darlin'," he stood and stretched before coming around to sit on the bench next to her, "I'm pretty sure the way it went down, anyone who might want to come after your family is going to want to think long and hard about it before they do it."

"Yeah," she harrumphed, "because of Amy."

Eliot scoffed and put his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side. "That's why you're mad? Because Nate called Amy in for back up? How is that any different than you calling me?"

_When he put it that way…_ the petulance of the arguments she'd had against it in her head seemed glaringly obvious. It wasn't like she and her sister hadn't partnered before, only the last time had ended in eleven dead when they were only paid for two. Em hunched her shoulders and dropped her chin to her chest. "I don't need her coming behind me just because I'm not actively in the game anymore."

"Aww darlin'," he pulled her close and put her head on his shoulder, kissing her widow's peak. "You blew up a car and quite possibly leveled the parking structure. Trust me, you are still just as lethal as the day we met."

She let her head rest on his shoulder for a moment. "You say the sweetest things, El," she said with sarcasm dripping from every word. "Next thing you know you'll be proposing."

His look of shock and utter terror, much like the look he'd had when he thought they'd had kids, was more than enough to break her dark mood. She stood and hobbled her way over to the bedroom door, throwing it wide. "You coming or what?"

/\/\/\/\/\

Eliot followed Em downstairs, still a little punch drunk from her shifting moods. One minute she's insecure about her sister and her own place in the normal world and the next she's teasing him about marriage. He blew out a huge sigh with cheeks bulging as he thought about that. Of all the people in the world who should not get married, they were pretty damn high up the list, and yet, he couldn't deny he'd thought about it once or twice. Often enough that the beer in his immediate future sounded like an infinitely better idea.

The downstairs of Nate's condo was a riot of activity. Parker sat on the couch with a fresh bowl of cereal on the coffee table in front of her and a game controller in her hand. One of the boys, Michael he figured, sat next to her and was doing his damnedest to wear her out in Mario Kart. At one end of the breakfast bar was Nate, hunched over a chessboard with the other little guy kneeling on one of the stools. They, too, looked like they were toe to toe.

The other end of the breakfast nook was populated by Hardison doing the requisite clean up and damage control from his laptop while chatting up Amy, who looked more like folk musician with her deep blue poet blouse, blue jeans, and Birkenstock sandals, than a woman who'd been posted up on a billboard platform with a .50 caliber custom Barrett (at least, that's what he _assumed_ was in the guitar case at her feet) and a temper a little over an hour ago. Sophie and Natalia sat at the kitchen table, surveying the mayhem with the smiles that only proud mothers wore. He took a seat on the stairs, content to watch the festivities from the sidelines, not really in the mood to interact with anyone.

As soon as the boys saw Em, they dropped their activities and ran over to her. She rained down kisses on their heads and faces, inciting giggles and squeals of dismay. "G'on. I gotta talk to your mom." With huge grins on their faces, they resumed their previous activities like everything was back to normal in their lives. Em took Sophie's place at the kitchen table, hugging her friend like they hadn't seen each other in years, and not days.

The feeling of ice cold glass on the back of his hand startled him as much as the voice in his ear. "She looks happy, Eliot. You did a good thing for her and those children." He shrugged as he twisted off the cap and took a long pull from the bottle instead of responding. "She was going to—"

"I know," he interrupted, not really in a place where he wanted to hear or think about that again. It had been on a loop inside his brain since they'd gotten back to the car. It all made sense, her determination that morning, the way she talked, the way she tried to get rid of him. Having the actual evidence of it when they'd dismantled the cane was an anti-climax, because he just knew. What made it worse was that apparently everybody knew but him, that's why Nate had brought in Amy, because when the exchange went south, her kind of firepower was the only other option besides Emmy and her nuclear one. He pinched the bottlecap in half between his fingers and stuck it in his pocket.

"You saved more than just the boys today," she said gently as she put her hand on his arm.

He nodded as he watched Em make her way over to her sister and Hardison, stopping at the breakfast bar and the couch to kiss and ruffle the boys' hair. His ears straining, he tried to make out the conversation between the two women, but had to concede that the volume of the playtime was too great. Their body language was relaxed, playful, and almost mirror images of one another, if he overlooked the height difference. Hardison kept looking between them, with expressions that were alternately besotted and wary. Eliot had one question, though: "How did she switch the frequency on the detonators?"

"She got in at three and she and Nate had a long conversation. She slept on the couch." Sophie sniffed, and her tone suggested that she slept upstairs with Nate, just to make sure her territory was clearly marked.

"Amy can be a little… much," he acknowledged, remembering back to one summer when she'd cut off all her sister's hair in her sleep for dismantling her bicycle. Their mother had called it 'the years of sectarian violence'. Little did they know that the government would take great advantage of the hotheads for its own purposes. "So did she go to Parker's right away?"

"No, Parker picked up the devices and brought them here. Nasty little pieces of work those." She shivered delicately, like she was remembering the explosion. He sure as hell was. "She disarmed them and reprogrammed them before we left for the job. She and Hardison rigged up a quick remote detonator. It was scary to watch them work."

Eliot nodded and drank the last of his beer. He held up the bottle and frowned at its dearth of liquid. "Doesn't surprise me. Amy is Hardison's type of woman." He honestly thought she was a little too much woman for his young friend, but he'd never give voice to that opinion.

"As Emmy is yours." She grinned and touched his arm again.

Sophie's eyes bored into the side of his head and he finally shrugged. "Depends on the day." He traversed the short distance from the stairs to the fridge, dropping his empty bottle in the trash along the way before retrieving another one.

When he finally met her gaze, she looked thoughtful. "Have you ever read any of her books?"

He leaned against the table with a grimace. No way in hell was he going to read a romance novel. "No."

Her grin was knowing as she walked over to the counter to dig in her oversize purse. She came back with a paperback, the cover colorful and well-loved to the point of being almost tattered. Pressing it into his reluctant hands, Sophie looked at him seriously. "Skip the prologue and read the beginning of chapter one." She wandered off then, joining Natalia, Emmy, and Amy as they all talked to Hardison.

The book in his hands burned his fingers. He watched each of his teammates and when he found that they were sufficiently distracted, he did as he'd been told and skipped over the prologue and plunged straight into the first chapter.

"_She remembered the summers just outside of Tulsa. Acres of green as the corn stretched up to the sun, with skies so blue they put her crayons to shame. That's how his eyes were, at least they used to be. Now, as she watched him move around the ring and sizing up his opponent, they were like chips of sapphire, cold and sharp. The first hit he took incensed him, transformed him, he went from a cat lazily playing with a toy to a cheetah on a gazelle, form following function as he systematically decimated his adversary. Hit after hit, breaking the other man down, until finally, mercifully, the other man fell and did not rise again. _

"_Arms over his head, Spencer Creed was led around the ring, showing off both his victory and the form she'd lusted after since childhood…."_ Eliot's face flamed as he read her description of the character, in loving detail, right down the scar on his upper lip that he'd gotten in a bike crash when they'd been eleven. Him. Emmy had written about him. He flipped over to the back to read the synopsis, and then looked at the cover again.

He felt curious eyes upon him and looked up, only to find Emmy watching him with a speculative expression. Eliot found that he loved the flush that spread over her cheeks as he held up the cover for her perusal. He raised it a little higher in salute, and she turned away with a smirk.

"You see everything you need to?" Sophie asked as she plucked the novel from his suddenly senseless fingertips as she appeared next to him.

He nodded stiffly, unsure how to proceed. The unopened beer was as good a deflection as any as he twisted off the cap and pinched it in half like he'd done with the other one. "I had no idea."

Sophie chuckled and patted his arm. "I didn't think you did. They're getting ready to leave for the airport."

He nodded and followed her to the living room, tucking the cap away with its mate. Emmy took the time to hug each member of the team, and thank them personally. By the time she got to him, though, everyone else had migrated out the front door, leaving them alone.

Emmy looked him up and down, the longing in her eyes tempered by weariness and wariness, both. "I owe you."

He shook his head and then immediately tucked his bangs behind his ears again. "No, you don't." Eliot took a step towards her and that was all she needed to move into his arms and hug the hell out of him. She buried her face in his neck, with her arms around his waist, and he kissed her temple. When she pulled back, he tilted her chin up so that he could look her in the eye. "You know, this is the part where I tell you not to be such a stranger."

Em nodded and dropped her arms from the embrace. "And we both know it can't be that way." She turned away and headed toward the door. She stopped in the doorway and gave him a long, last look. "At least we're not mad this time."

"Small favors," he murmured at her back, and then she was gone. When the rest of the team returned, it was just to gather their belongings and split up for the evening. Tomorrow would be like just another day at the office. At least, for the rest of them. He stopped Sophie just before she walked out the door. "Hey, can I borrow that book?"

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**This song was kind of the theme of this chapter. I love 'The House Rules' and it's on nonstop on my mp3 player.**

**"We go round and round, tryin' to work it out**  
**And all I get is hell-bent and bound**  
**Never far from right where we are**

**And you would think that we'd get enough**  
**You know we're goin' to fuck it up**  
**We're holdin' on and sinking down**  
**Here we go round and round**  
**Making circles…"-_Making Circles, Christian Kane_**


End file.
